Part One: Dirty Rich Secrets, #1 Page 2

  “Ashley,” he says softly again, and oh God, he’s behind me now, his breath a warm fan on my neck.

  I whirl on him, my gun pressed to his T-shirt that stretches across his broad chest, his body perfectly honed. And why wouldn’t it be? This is the body he used to fuck me with while he was killing people, or so I’m told.

  “They told me everything, and I’ve laid in bed dreaming of killing you,” I seethe.

  “I taught you to use that gun for a reason. To keep you alive. To protect you.”

  “To kill you?”

  “Is that what you want? To kill me? Because now isn’t my time. You aren’t safe, and I’m the person who can protect you.”

  “I know the truth,” I hiss at him.

  “You know what they told you. I’m here to tell you my version of everything.” His hand comes down on the gun. “Shoot me or come sit down with me. Talk to me.”

  “I’m no threat to you. I know nothing to tell anyone because you never told me a word of truth. Leave. Just leave me alone.”

  “You know I can’t do that.” He moves before I can blink, taking the gun from me, and shoving it in the back of his pants, proof that where this man is concerned, I’m always a fool. With no other option, I try to turn and run again, but it’s too late. He drags me to him, pulling me flush against his familiar, hard body.

  “I didn’t betray my country. I was setup.”

  I don’t fight him. I mean to what end would that lead me anyway? He’s bigger, he’s stronger. He’s a CIA agent. And I’ve already screwed up and lost the upper hand. “What do you want from me?” I demand.

  “You. I just want you.”

  “Is this where you kill me?”

  “I would never hurt you, and I won’t let anyone else hurt you either.”

  “You already hurt me.”

  “I know that, but I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you give me the chance.”

  I’m trembling all over, my heart pounding in my ears. “Stop playing games with me. Just kill me and be done with it.”

  “Do you really believe I’d hurt you?”

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “You do. You know me.”

  “You mean I know the financial investor who was really a CIA agent?” I don’t want to give him time to reply, but he doesn’t give me a choice.

  “I would have told you before the wedding.”

  “That’s it? You’d have told me before the wedding? And all would be peachy and perfect?” Tears burn in my eyes. “I didn’t even know your real name,” I state because that has gutted me.

  “I know I lied to you, but that’s my job, Ashley. I was on a mission. You were a part of that mission, close to someone I needed to get to.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone connected to the law firm you worked at. That’s how this started, but you, you did what no one else ever had. You became personal.”

  “Personal?” I demand. “Is that what you call asking me to marry you when I didn’t even know your real name?”

  “That was real. I was going to leave the CIA. I was going to tell you everything and leave.”

  He releases me and cups my face, our foreheads pressed together. “I would have come for you sooner, but it wasn’t safe. I would have explained everything, but it wasn’t the right time.”

  All the warnings about him from the CIA play in my head. He’s dangerous. He’s a killer. He’ll wipe out anything and anyone in his path. “What are you going to do to me now that you’re here?”

  “This,” he says, and before I realize his intention, his mouth closes down on mine, a deep slide of his tongue that I feel from my head to my toes, and I try to resist. I do, but he tastes like the only man I’ve ever loved. He feels like the only man I’ve ever loved. He smells like the man I thought I’d marry. He’s the only safe place I’ve known my entire life. For just a moment, or two, or ten, I need him to be that man. I sink into the kiss, and I kiss him with all that I am and will ever be, and it’s such a passionate kiss, such a perfect kiss, the kind that fills up every empty place I’ve ever known and overflows with this man.

  “Do you feel us now?” he asks, tearing his mouth from mine.

  “Of course, I do,” I whisper. “Because you made me love you. I can’t just turn that off. I want this, and us, to be real, but it’s not.”

  “We are what’s real. I’m going to make you feel that.” And then he’s kissing me again, and I know I’m a crazy person, but I don’t fight him. If he’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me. There’s no fighting him, but fear isn’t what I feel. I’ve been so alone without him. And I’m still so in love with him. If I’m going to die, at least I want to live in the fantasy of this man loving me one more time. Just that thought has me pressing my hands under his shirt to feel his hot, hard muscle beneath my palms.

  He pulls his shirt over his head, and then he’s pulling jacket and shirt off before our mouths collide again, and he’s taking us down on the mattress. We’re side by side, facing each other, and he catches my leg with his. “I missed the hell out of you, woman,” he says, his voice low, gravelly, guttural. Like he means it. I feel him and us in that moment. It feels real, but it always did. We were the most real thing I have known in my life, and that’s terrifying. He’s terrifying, but as his mouth closes down on mine, the possessive, hungry taste of him touching my tongue, I remind myself I’ve decided to live the fantasy one last time.

  I need him.

  I want him.

  I hate him.

  I love him.

  He presses me to my back and never stops kissing me. His hand pushes down my bra, his fingers teasing one of my nipples. I moan, and there is a vibrating sound from somewhere. “Fuck,” he murmurs. “That’s our warning, baby.”

  “Warning? What does that mean?”

  “I’ll make this all up to you, Ashley. I promise. I promise, baby. I will make it up to you, but right now, I need to protect you.” He sticks something in my mouth, and it melts the minute it touches my tongue. “What did you—”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ashley…

  Awareness comes to me with a warm sensation and a strange sound, almost like a crackle. I blink, and the warm glow of a fire in a stone fireplace is in my direct view. It’s then that I notice the soft, snuggly blanket covering me. I lay there, basking in the comfort of the moment and trying to remember where and how it came about. But I’m sleepy, so very sleepy, and at the moment, I’m obviously safe and comfortable, so much so, I’m not ready to do anything but shut my eyes and drift away. In my mind, I’m back in time, back in Houston, and I’m waking up in Noah’s bed for the first time, waking up to the sensation of his big, hard body wrapped around mine.

  “You’re awake,” he murmurs at my ear, his voice like warm, honeyed whiskey that sets me on fire and then soothes every part of me.

  “Hmmm,” I reply groggily, basking in everything that is this man. “I am.” My eyes pop open as the full impact of the morning after hits me. “Wait. Is this where you want me to leave?”

  He gives a low chuckle and nuzzles my neck. “The last thing I want right now is for you to leave. Unless,” he presses the thick ridge of his erection between my thighs, “do you want to leave?”

  “No,” I say, arching into him. “I don’t want to leave.”

  “Good,” he says. “Because I make a killer waffle, and since I plan to keep you naked and in bed all day, you’re going to need your energy.” He surprises me by rotating me around to face him and then I’m staring into those deeply brown eyes, my hand stroking the rasp of his shadowed jaw. “Unless you have another plan for the day?” he queries.

  As if I could even remember anything but him right now. “Waffles are good.”

  “Yes,” he says, molding me close. “Waffles are good.” He leans in to kiss me, and I cover his mouth with my hand. “I need a toothbrush.”

  He kis
ses my hand and then kisses me anyway, lips to lips, before he says, “toothbrush, waffles, and then back to bed.” He throws off the blanket and stands up, naked as the day he was born, and good lord, the man has a perfectly tight backside.

  He turns around, showing me other really perfect parts of his body. He takes my hand and pulls me (as naked as the day I was born as well) to my feet with him. “I’ll show you where the shower is.” He scoops me up and starts walking.

  “Noah,” I laugh, but there’s no question that I’m thoroughly charmed by this man.

  I come back awake with a smile on my lips and the same crackling fireplace in front of me. The same warm blanket is on top of me, but this time, a deep muffled male voice resonates through the room and me, stroking me into a seductive sigh. “Noah,” I whisper, my lashes lowering only to pop back open. Noah.

  I shoot to a sitting position, my gaze jerking around what appears to be a cabin of some sort. What the hell is happening? Where am I? How did I get here? I press my fingers to my temple and try to remember something, anything, when Noah’s voice lifts in the air again. “No,” he says to someone. “I had no choice. She was a sitting duck. If I could find her, they could as well, and if they found her, she’d be dead.”

  My hand goes to my throat. Dead. I’d be dead.

  “I’m not letting that happen.” He’s silent a moment. “I didn’t need an excuse to go after her,” he adds. “I was never going to let her go.”

  Never going to let me go? I like this. I hate this. I’m so very confused by this and everything to do with me and this man. My hand leaves my neck and presses to the cushion of the soft cloth couch beneath me. I’m even more confused when Noah, or Aaron—they told me his real name is Aaron—or whoever he is walks in the room looking like sex and sin in jeans, no shirt, feet bare, and two steaming cups in hand. I’ve lost time. I’ve lost the time between the moment he showed up in my bedroom and now. I will the memories, the time, to come back, but my God, he’s gorgeous. He’s perfect. The perfect killer, I remind myself. The perfect shirtless killer. I blanch. Wait. If he’s shirtless, what am I wearing and what did I forget? I throw my legs off the cushion to the floor and sit up. He sits down next to me and offers me one of the cups he’s holding.

  “Milk chocolate cocoa, the way you like it, with whipped cream.”

  I shoot to my feet and throw the blanket aside, free to run, to fight. “What is this? Where are we? Why the hell don’t you have on clothes?” I look down at myself, and I’m in my favorite jeans, my favorite pink sweater, with Converse sneakers on my feet. I jerk my attention back to him, as he sets the mugs on the table.

  “I don’t remember how I got here,” I accuse.

  “There’s much to talk about, baby. Let’s just sit and drink the cocoa and talk.”

  “I am not your baby. You want to talk. Give me my loaded gun then we’ll talk.”

  He holds up his hands. “You have nothing to fear from me. You know that. You know me and us.”

  “I know nothing about you. You’re nothing you said you were. Why is the fireplace lit in Texas? And why are you shirtless and shoeless?”

  “We didn’t have sex if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. “And you damn sure better remember when we do. And as for my shirt and shoes, the Colorado snow soaked my shirt and boots.”

  My eyes go wide. “Colorado? We’re in Colorado?”

  “Yes,” he confirms. “We’re in Colorado.”

  “Why? How? I can’t remember anything. Except—” My mind flashes back to my apartment and him touching me and kissing me and then—I grab a pillow from the couch and chuck it at him. He ducks, and I turn and start running. But he’s there, catching me from behind, arms around me, cheek next to mine.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “You drugged me,” I pant out. “God, I let you kiss me, because—”

  “You love me the way I love you. Let me explain. Just give me five minutes.”

  His arms around me are so damn familiar, his body is familiar. “Give me my gun, and I’ll listen to your lies.”

  He turns me in his arms, his hand between my shoulder blades, molding me close; the other catching my hair and tilting my face to his. “I’m not going to shoot you, and you’re not going to shoot me.”

  “Just poison me with damn hot chocolate?”

  His hands move to my shoulders but keeps me close, his eyes meeting mine in challenge. “Why would I bring you here to kill you?”

  My chin lifts in defiance. “I don’t pretend to know anything about you.”

  “Please. Sit with me.” He presses his forehead to mine, his hand in my hair once more, settling on the back of my head. “Just listen to what I have to say.”

  “You kissed me and drugged me. Why would I be that stupid again?”

  “I had no time to explain,” he says. “We were in imminent danger.”

  I shove on his chest and pull back. “Which is why you took the time to kiss me? You are so full of bullshit.”

  His eyes meet mine. “It had been too fucking long since I kissed you.”

  His voice is low, rasping with emotion that I feel in my chest, and the damn air around us is thick and heavy. He’s sucking me in. He’s dragging me under his spell and to what end? “It won’t work this time. I know who you are and that’s a traitor, a dirty CIA agent, not the investment banker I was supposed to marry. I know what you are. I know what we aren’t.”

  “Someone set me up. I had to run. I was a hot target, and you were in protective custody before I could get to you. I made the call that ended this, fixing it so you’d be safe. It was the right decision.”

  There’s hope in my chest and that makes me stupid. That makes me angry at me and him. “And now?”

  “It’s not over, baby, but you’re no longer safer without me. The dark web had a call for your assassination.”

  “The dark web,” I repeat, remembering a case I’d help manage at the firm involving the dark web, aware of just how illicit and real it is. “Because they think I can hurt you? Because they think I know something I don’t know?”

  “Because of me, yes. Because you matter to me. Because in my lifetime in the CIA, I’ve never shown any weakness until you. I will not let them hurt you. The only one who dies is anyone who comes after you.”

  “Because you’re a killer.”

  “I swore to myself and I swear to you that I won’t lie to you again. So, yes, because I’m a killer.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ashley…

  Suddenly, all the anger I’ve felt toward this man bubbles over. “You’re a killer? Is that supposed to scare me or make me feel better? Because honestly Noah or Aaron, or whatever the hell your name is, you’ve taken everything from me. I have nothing left to lose and so I don’t choose fear for my last emotion.”

  “Scare you? You’re a smart person, baby. You want a killer protecting you when a killer comes after you.” His hand slides under my hair to my neck, and he drags my mouth to his. “And this time, the killer loves you. You are the only assignment that got personal.”

  I shove against him again. “Let me go. Let me go.”

  He hesitates, making a frustrated sound, but he lets me twist away from him. “Fuck,” he curses, turning away from me and running a hand through his hair before he turns to face me. “I was on assignment,” he says. “I needed a cover. You were an in, but you became so much more. I don’t get personal, Ashley, but you, you were personal from the moment I met you.” He walks to the couch, pulls his gun from behind his back, sits down, and places it on the table. “It’s loaded. Take it.” He looks at me. “But don’t shoot me until I make sure you’re safe.”

  I’m angry again. I’m so many things I can’t name right now, and adrenaline drives me forward. I round the coffee table and stand across from him. “Why would a self-proclaimed killer protect me?”

  “Because I love you, and I don’t love anyone.
My job might have been a lie, but nothing else between us was.”

  I hug myself. I want to believe him. My God, I so want to believe him. I want to just be with him, but how can I? “The stories they told me. The stories—”

  “Lies. I did not betray my country. I gave everything for my country. I swore I would never love for my country. And I didn’t until you. Take the gun. If it will make you feel safer, take the gun.”

  “I don’t want the fucking gun. I want you to stop lying to me.”

  “I did. The minute I told you I was a killer.”

  “Stop saying that.” I pick up the gun and point it at him. “Stop saying that!”

  He stands now and walks around the coffee table. He’s so damn big, so damn agile, but I don’t run. I’m done running. I’m here. It’s not like I can just walk out the door unless I shoot him. We turn to face each other, and I again point the gun at him. He steps closer, pressing the gun to his chest as he had at my apartment. “I was, I am, an assassin for the CIA, and I never missed a target. The people who will come for you, who are coming for us, are my equals. I am what stands between you and them.” He reaches down and covers the gun with his hand, but he doesn’t try and take it. “If I was going to kill you, you’d be dead, so decide now: are you going to live with me or die without me? Because that’s what this comes down to.”

  I stare at him, searching his handsome face, looking into those dark brown eyes, and I believe him. I believe him because I always sensed this in him. I knew. I’m a smart person who knew, and yet, I stayed with him, I craved him. I loved him. I let go of the gun. “What now?”

  He sets the gun on the table, and the next thing I know, he’s dragging me to him, his hand sliding to cup my neck. “This,” he rasps softly.

  His mouth closes down on mine, a deep slide of tongue follows, and I feel that lick clear to my toes. I tell myself to resist, but I can’t. I really can’t. He’s still the man I fell in love with, he’s still the man I was going to marry, to call my husband. And the truth is that I was terrified that he was dead. I was terrified that I would never see him again. Suddenly, all I want is this moment, all I want is to feel him, to find the familiar in him, in us. I melt into the kiss, but I am no submissive. I demand he answer me. I demand he show me how real this is, how real we were. I need to know. I need to know now.